Caller identification (Caller ID) systems provide the subscriber with the telephone number of the incoming call. In addition, these systems provide the date and time of the call and the caller's name. However, present caller ID methods do not provide the name of the caller when the caller is inside of a corporation. When the caller is inside a corporation the caller ID system passes along only the corporation (organization) name. This information may be helpful if the call is placed outside the corporation, but when the call is within the corporation the information is not very helpful.
One solution has been to locate a name list for the corporation in a central office switch. When a call is placed within the same corporation (centrex group), the switch does a lookup on a database associated with the corporation and passes along the caller's name. Unfortunately, this only works for the corporation's telephones connected to a single switch. A call requiring transfer between two central office switches will only provide the corporation's name.
Thus there exists a need for a method of providing caller ID with name within a customer group that works across multiple central office switches or between LATAs (Local Access Transport Area).